State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, paces the floor. as he wait to speak about the six young people who were killed last Friday, at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, May 27, 2014. Lawmakers say the state Legislature needs to do more to deter the type of violence carried out by 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 13 others in the shooting and stabbing attacks Friday night, May 23, in the Isla Vista community near campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

SACRAMENTO -- Days after a disturbed Santa Barbara college student went on a murderous rampage that left seven young people dead, Senate Democrats have introduced a set of proposals to change the way California's criminal justice system treats the mentally ill.

Introducing perhaps his last package of legislation before being termed out, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said he wants to expand access to "mental health courts" that favor treatment over punishment, as well as train law enforcement officials how to properly identify and interact with mentally ill people on the street.

Speaking at a Sacramento news conference Wednesday, Steinberg also dismissed any chance of reviving several gun-control bills introduced in response to the mass shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School and vetoed last year by Gov. Jerry Brown, even while relatives of the Isla Vista gunman's victims begged the state to do more to prevent the next mass shooting. The most controversial of Steinberg's vetoed gun bills would have banned detachable magazines on new semi-automatic rifles.

"Tragedies create opportunities for legislators to move reform proposals, but sometimes those opportunities are more limited than they'd like," said Jack Pitney, a professor of government and politics at Claremont McKenna College.

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Steinberg's proposals are based on a report released this week by Stanford Law School's Three Strikes Project, which found that the state could dramatically reduce recidivism among mentally ill offenders by changing the way they're sentenced, providing better treatment behind bars and continuing care after they're released.

Almost half of California's inmates are treated for mental illnesses while they're incarcerated.

He called it a "cruel coincidence" that the report was published several days after the violent rampage that has torn the UC Santa Barbara community apart, but Steinberg said the incident underscores the need to better train police how to recognize the warning signs of severe mental illness.

Authorities said 22-year-old community college student Elliot Rodger killed six UC Santa Barbara students in Isla Vista on Friday after posting a video online describing his plans. The attacker died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The rampage came hours after Rodger emailed a lengthy manifesto to his parents, therapists and others -- and a month after sheriff's deputies had visited him on a welfare check after his parents became concerned about his YouTube postings.

The deputies found Rodger to be shy but polite and left without walking through the apartment or talking to anyone else. Rodger later wrote in his manifesto that deputies would have found his weapons and foiled his plot if only they had done a bit more checking.

"There were so many moments this man's behavior could have and should have been identified," said Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara. "The notion that law enforcement went to his home without the full panoply of resources available to identify this young man's intentions while he was fomenting this crime is unacceptable."

Senate Democrats want to redirect $12 million already promised to local police departments in next year's budget and use it to train officers how to safely deal with people who are mentally ill, homeless or addicts. They also want to use $24 million from the general fund to train prison guards and other prison staff.

Steinberg said he wants to see the state establish protocols that would become the bedrock of training on how to intervene more assertively. In the future, he said, perhaps law enforcement officials conducting wellness checks will be required to interview friends and neighbors or find out if the person they're investigating has recently purchased weapons.

"Without being critical, we can look at situations like Santa Barbara and let it instruct what we do going forward. That's my goal," said Steinberg, who introduced the package of proposals alongside Sens. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, and Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley.

Policy changes that aim to keep mentally ill people out of prison are the best ways to reduce recidivism and reduce the cost of incarceration because once mentally ill people are confined to prison it's hard to reverse the effects of the experience, said Keith Humphreys, a mental health policy expert at Stanford.

"It's hard to un-ring that bell and reverse the effects," Humphreys said. "I'm glad to see we're moving toward getting the mentally ill services and getting them out."